1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a method of controlling launch thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, saving the power of image forming apparatuses has been desired. For example, European implementing regulations for standby power consumption define a standby mode in which triggers such as a network, a remote switch, a built-in sensor, and a timer make the principle functionality usable, and an off mode in which even a trigger such as a network is not accepted and power consumption does not exceed 0.50 W. The regulations also make it mandatory for equipment to offer a power management function that enables automatic switching to the off or standby mode.
Increasing the functionality of image forming apparatuses has also been desired in recent years. Image forming apparatuses have been demanded to have much more functionality and enhance their performance in order to provide solutions for improving the user's work efficiency. Satisfying both of power saving and high functionality, however, raises a problem in that the launch time is increased. This is because hardware and software for controlling the hardware become complex in order to satisfy both of power saving and high functionality, and accordingly the launch time becomes longer. The launch time is an amount of time from when a power switch is turned on to when equipment becomes usable by a user after initialization of hardware and software.
As a countermeasure against such a problem of increased launch time, there is a so-called ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)-S3 mode in which when a user has turned a power switch off, the power supply to the main storage memory is continued, and when the user has turned the power switch on, the launch speed is increased by using information stored in the main storage. Hereinafter, such a technique for increasing the launch speed using the ACPI-S3 mode is referred to as “quick launch”. Furthermore, a state in which quick launch is active and end processing has been completed is referred to as “quick off”. For quick launch, since information obtained by previous launch is held, the power supply to part of hardware including a real time clock (RTC) is continued even in the power off state. In this case, the RTC is active, so if an alarm is set in the RTC, equipment will revert due to RTC interrupts, despite the user intending to end the apparatus by turning the power switch off. However, because the power switch is off, the equipment will be powered off in the middle of operation after an engine and a scanner have been activated for launch. Thus, simply employing quick off results in unintended reversion due to RTC interrupts.
For example, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-087362, when in the off or suspend state, equipment transitions to the normal state upon receiving an external event such as an alarm. Conversely, when in the normal state, the equipment transitions to the standby or suspend state in the event of timeout. Thus, if no countermeasure is taken, the equipment, when in the off state, will revert to the normal state in the event of an alarm. Furthermore, according to the definitions of the European implementing regulations for standby power consumption, the case in which quick launch is active is equivalent to the off mode in which power consumption shall not exceed 0.50 W, in which case reversion in response to an RTC timer has to be prohibited.
Meanwhile, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-047536 for disabling an RTC timer, a weekly timer that is used to shut down equipment at a designated time on each day of the week is disabled when using a cascade copy function in which output is distributed to a plurality of multi-function peripherals. This technique is a method for disabling a software timer during job execution.
In this way, with the conventional technology, when a user has turned the power switch off in a state in which the quick launch is active, if a time is set in the RTC, equipment is launched in response to RTC interrupts occurring.
Furthermore, at the time of normal launch, a time is set in the RTC as necessary when each module is initialized. However, at the time of quick launch, a time is not set again in the RTC if no measure is taken because previous processing that was being performed before turning the power switch off is continued.
Moreover, a case is considered in which RTC settings are cancelled before quick off, and then after quick launch, a time during quick off is set again in the RTC so as to execute an RTC interrupt. In such a case, an application that has received the RTC interrupt cannot know if the received RTC interrupt is an interrupt that has occurred during quick off or an on-time interrupt. For this reason, if a past time has been set in the RTC, an RTC interrupt will occur immediately after the setting.
Furthermore, if there are a plurality of RTC interrupts set during quick off because, for example, the quick-off period was long, a large number of interrupts will occur at the time of quick launch, and as a result, quick launch processing is stopped for a long time. Furthermore, if conditions such as whether or not to set RTC interrupts again at the time of quick launch are made selectable, the amount of time taken until the quick launch is completed increases as the number of such conditions increases.